What’s Changing?
I read recently about the huge drop in ratings at all the mainstream networks. This is especially interesting in an election year. I have no idea where viewers are going but assume TikTok has a lot to do with it, scary as that sounds. With COVID now over, what seems like endless government chaos, and so many lives disrupted, I’m still trying to understand the flow and rationale of all news. More and more stories emerge every day that we were lied to about virtually everything related to COVID.
I currently read people are exiting the big cities in droves and how the tax base is going away. I also hear how millions are now there at the lower end due to illegal immigration. Yet, when I look on Zillow, I can’t reconcile the two. Some very expensive homes have doubled in price in recent years in places that are described as complete shitholes. Yet, I can reconcile the truth in all of it. If people are leaving and there is nobody there to buy homes, shouldn’t the price drop? Someone said big PE is buying up the houses, but who’s in them?
The two political parties have their agendas, and so do our government and the media. Then we layer on GPT-4o, and it’s all kind of this big chaotic pile that’s hard to reconcile. It sometimes takes me hours to wade through nonsense to get at data.
I don’t know where to go for trustworthy news. I like X a lot, but I get exhausted wading through the engagement farming and false information. Now Elon said today that he’s looking into why conservatives are throttled on X. While X is doing a good job with community notes, some still get by me before the community note goes up. I then stop following the source of the false information.
I’ve never known a time like this when so many voices are screaming for our attention, from Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, TruthSocial, TikTok, the mainstream media, and so many are contradicting each other. I want to just get at the truth here.
What was the real crowd size at the Trump/Bronx rally? It’s nearly impossible to find the right answer for something that simple. One photo claimed that the rally was small, but there was a time stamp of 11:09 and a temperature of 75 degrees on the lower right, eight hours before the rally.
Someone later claimed it was PM and that was video shot during the speech and aired on the late-night local news. They even circled all the secret service in the frozen image to prove he was on stage. Then someone else said no, that was shot in the morning and that was normal security holding the perimeter. So, what was it? So, I looked at the temperature data for the day and time, and it was 75 degrees during both times, both morning and evening. I shouldn’t have to sleuth temperature data to determine which 11:09 it was, AM or PM, should I?
My point is, how do you then know the truth? Both could be right. You’d then have to look at when the video aired according to the network, and nobody has put that up yet. This is the problem, people don’t know what to trust, and if you watch just one or two sources, there is no way you’re getting the truth. In fact, you’re not getting a lot of news.
It doesn’t have to be politics; this problem is everywhere and on all subjects. Bill Maher in front of a huge audience had no idea that no Capitol Police were killed in the line of duty on January 6. How does that happen? How could he not know? Megyn Kelly had to straighten him out. The one officer that died and has been named, died of two strokes.
My point is that it takes a lot more critical thinking to get at the truth of the day. I can’t spend the hours sifting through stories to verify facts and yet, no single source is trusted. I can see why so many people are wound up. Everything has a spin.
In conclusion, I don’t know where people have gone, but I can say, with finding correct data as tedious as it is these days, I’d say they are probably not bothering at all and are just preferring to entertain themselves. I can’t imagine the average person doing a lot of digging to get at the truth. We have a shortage of critical thinkers anyway. Maybe that’s what some want. You can get away with a lot of bad stuff if nobody is watching, right?
EDIT: I’m adding this days later. If this doesn’t worry you- also notice it’s all different networks saying the same thing.